National Affairs: Union Now

Sixteen months ago, Clarence K. Streit (Union Now) proposed a union of democracies against the Nazi tide. Since then, disunited democracies have collapsed like sand castles. This week, in a full-page advertisement (“paid for by a group of American citizens”) appearing in the New York Times, Streit proposed “UNION NOW . . . [of] the U. S. A. and the Six British Democracies . . . before it is too late.”

Among the few courses left to U. S. foreign policy, said Streit, were: to give the British up as lost, thus abandon the U. S.’s first line of defense; to give all aid short of war, or go to war (neither of which courses held any insurance that the British fleet would not be surrendered, turned against the U. S.). The U. S., said Streit, must offer Britain the hope that lay in Union Now with the U. S. Union gave the 13 colonies the courage to fight tyranny in 1776. “We face now not George III but Adolf I.”

How would Streit’s Union work? “A provisional Inter-Continental Congress” would be set up “on this side of the Atlantic,'” composed of 27 representatives from the U. S., eleven from the United Kingdom, three from Canada, three from Australia, two each from Ireland, Union of South Africa, and New Zealand. This body alone ‘would have the power to declare war or peace. “The British Cabinet . . . could no more surrender the naval or other armed forces than the Government of New York can surrender any of the armed forces of the American Union.” The British fleet would be secured against surrender and united with the U.S. fleet to rule the Seven Seas, even though England and Ireland were invaded, crushed.

Would the British accept? Wrote Streit with confidence: “The British consider such a proposition practicable and await only our invitation.”